hms iron duke

Monday, 30 June 2014

Brussels, Belgium. 30
June. Last week was a big week; Jean-Claude
Juncker was imposed by Germany as European Commission President and a landmark
free trade deal was signed between the EU and Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. It also marked the true birth of Berlin-Brussels
as a power. This morning Berlin is
desperately trying to pour balm on troubled British waters but it is too late. Taken together the three events crystallise
the new power reality of Europe in which there is a consolidating core centred
upon Germany and the EUrozone and a periphery comprised of Europe’s strategic losers - Britain, Russia and Turkey.

At the core of the core
is Berlin-Brussels or B-Squared (B2). I could call it an ‘Axis’ but modern Germany
is not old Germany and I will not fall into the history trap. As of Friday Europe’s periphery now includes
Russia, Turkey and Britain all three of which were once core powers but are now
very much on Europe’s/Germany’s periphery.

Let me take Britain
first. No-one should under-estimate the
structural fracture that took place Friday between the EUrozone (the real EU) and
Britain. This morning Berlin is
desperately trying to pour balm on troubled British waters but it is too late. In fact, the British now find themselves in
the most invidious of positions with the relationship between costs and
benefits absurdly perverse. The British people
pay over €6bn per annum for membership of a club over which it has no influence
and which does it more harm than good in terms of imposed regulation and lost
national sovereignty.

Then there is
Russia. Moscow reacted with predictable
fury at the signing of the partnership agreements in Brussels last week with much
talk of dark “consequences” and even “Nazis”.
For the Russians this accord is but the latest sign that the EU is challenging
what Moscow believes to be the Russian sphere of influence. Moscow also sees
the EU as less institution devoted to preventing extreme state behaviour and ever
more a ‘state’ with its own interests and thus a threat to Russia. To the Russian strategic mind all and any
states must seek a sphere of influence and in Europe given history it must be at
Russia’s expense. Indeed, to Moscow many
Central and Eastern Europeans have simply swapped the Red Star for the Yellow
Star.

Turkey is another
matter entirely. For almost fifty years
the EU and its many precursors have been implying eventual Turkish membership
and Ankara has pretended to believe them.
This promise has led Turkey to orient its foreign and security policy
towards Europe and to slowly align its constitution and governance with the
‘democratic values’ EU membership demands. The game is now up. Turkey will never be offered EU membership and
now knows it. Germany and France do not
want it and in any case the cost of enlargement to Turkey is too much and Prime
Minister Erdogan knows that too. That is
why Ankara is pursuing an increasingly robust domestic policy and an ever more autonomous
and assertive foreign policy that looks south and east not just west.

But here’s the
rub. Whereas Moscow, Ankara and to a
very much lesser extent London still think in terms of a classical balance of
power B2
sees power in much more in terms of the balance of money. When Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine sign accords
with the EU they do so partly to escape Moscow’s influence. Equally, they do so also in the belief that eventual
EU membership is implied and along with with it the bucket-loads of European
taxpayer’s cash needed to save their basket-case economies.

However, it is
precisely the issue of money where the B2
strategic calculus falls apart. The sums simply do not add up. There are only ten countries that actually
pay for the EU, three of which are so deeply in debt (France and Italy) they
they are or soon will be net recipients and another Britain could well soon leave. Merkel advisor Michael Fuchs said this
morning that a Brexit would be a disaster.
What he means specifically is the loss of British taxpayer’s money.

Therefore, either an
intolerable European ‘tax’ will need to be imposed on the German, Danish,
Dutch, Swedish et al taxpayers or B2 will
fail . In other words, it will be
impossible for Berlin-Brussels to continue to pay “mountains of gold” to ‘transfer
junkies’ such as Poland, save the Euro and EUrozone banks AND pay for membership
aspirants such as Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.
Europe’s defence has already been sacrificed so maintain the illusion of
a Europe that can afford both to widen and deepen.

Sooner or later the
promise of EU membership and the oodles of European cash that goes with it will
dry up and disappointment will set in.
At that point Russia’s influence will increase sharply and with it
Moscow’s ‘interference’.

Europe’s peripheral
fission has profound implications for the transatlantic relationship. Indeed, such fission will undermine not only
the EU but also NATO and in time render the Baltic States in particular
indefensible in the face of a Russia that is likely to become more aggressive
not less so. That is what a political
settlement between B2 and Britain is so
important.

There is a further
danger; the eclipsing of German leadership.
If push comes to shove German leadership is vastly preferable to some
form of falsely-democratic federal Europe and yet that is precisely the battle
to come at the heart of B2. At some point Juncker will likely defy
Berlin. He will claim that his
nomination and confirmation as European Commission President by the European Parliament
establishes the ‘political legitimacy’ for the transformation of the European
Commission into a European Government.
Indeed, he will claim a solemn duty to represent the ‘will’ of Europe’s
peoples vested in him even if they did not actually vote for him. At some point B2
will collapse and a Europe the sum of which is already less than the sum of its
parts on the world stage will fall apart. Germany will at some point have to make some
hard choices.

Britain, Russia and
Turkey may not appear to have much in common on the face of it. However, all three are profoundly unhappy
with their respective relationships with B2. For its own sake Berlin
must move to end Europe’s peripheral fission.

Friday, 27 June 2014

Bucharest Airport,
Romania. 27 June. It is not my normal practice to devote three
blogs in one week to the same subject.
However, when a development takes place that justifies a third missive I
will so do from time to time. Yesterday I
had a very constructive conversation with a senior German who clearly understands
the gravity and the implications of Jean-Claude Juncker’s disastrous appointment
as European Commission President which will be confirmed in Brussels today.

There is much talk of
Cameron’s ‘failure’ but this is a political disaster of Germany’s making. Chancellor
Merkel is the real author of this mess. She
has demonstrated herself to be unreliable, irresolute and all too willing to
impose German domestic politics on the rest of Europe. Worse, she has been aided and abetted by the appalling
lack of backbone by the political invertebrates/amoeba who claim to 'lead' other EU
member-states. Many of them are quietly and
equally concerned by the Juncker appointment but switched sides the moment
Merkel wobbled in the face of an assault by Bild.

True to form I have
just heard the new Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb calling for Britain to
“wake up and smell the coffee” and be more ‘pragmatic’. That is Euro-speak for
the abandonment of all political principle and the unquestioning acceptance of
all and any Brussels diktat. Stubb, who
I know, suggests that the EU is good for Britain. What are you putting in your coffee, Alexander?
A report out today by respected
think-tank Civitas demonstrates that
there are few economic benefits for the UK from EU membership and there has not
been for a long-time.

Stubb went on to warn
of a complete shut-out from the EU market if Britain left the EU. Not only would that be illegal it reflects
the just how dishonest EU leaders are at such moments. Take Liberal Democrat and Chief Secretary to
the Treasury Danny Alexander. As Cameron left for Ypres this week he cited a
Treasury (Finance Ministry) report claiming the loss of three million jobs
should Britain leave the EU. This was an
extreme scenario cited in the report.
Sadly, the use of false statistics typifies the method of federalist’s
like Alexander who seek to mask their true political ambitions. In fact Danny Alexander used to be the leader
of a group called Young European
Federalists something which he now tries to hide from the very people he is
seeking to con.

Over coffee here at
Bucharest Airport my German colleague conceded to me that this is a very
dangerous moment. However, he also said
rightly that very few Germans want either an EU Government or a German
Empire. Indeed, not one sensible German
with whom I have spoken recently wants either.
Most of them would rather England won the World Cup than, although the
likelihood of an EU Government is the greater.

One reason that this
has happened is that European leaders have not had an honest conversation with
each other about the finalité of the EU in Euro-speak. It is a conversation that is urgently needed.

My proposal will
infuriate smaller EU member-states but then again Luxembourgeois Juncker’s
pending appointment is but the latest piece of EU small state tyranny. However, it is vital the leaders of Britain,
Germany, France and Italy sit down and discuss both the limits of ‘Europe’ and
a programme of real reform rather than the pretend ‘thing’ that will emerge
today. In any case other leaders have
simply demonstrated the EU’s “and me too” tendency – whatever Germany wants
goes.

The first aim of such a
chat would be to establish the nature and extent of the disagreement between
the big four member-states. Talking to
my German colleague my sense is that in fact whilst disagreements about the
role and size of Brussels do exist they really are not that great.

Equally, if as a result
of this debate there is indeed an enormous gap in both ambition and principle
between Britain, France and Germany then at least leaders can begin to start
considering sensibly the practical nature of a changed British relationship
with the EU.

The Juncker appointment
means the EU and its member-states must finally answer the question that has
been long in the making but which can no longer be fudged by ‘pragmatism’; is
the EU a tight collective of partner states or a proto-European government? My sense of my German colleague is that
whilst Berlin might disagree with aspects of Britain’s position Germany still
wants the former rather than the latter. If so, Berlin must say that loud and clear.
Indeed, unless an honest discussion
takes place between the Big Four over the finalité politically devious
federalists will continue to exploit the silence between them and we the voters
will be ignored again and again.

This is a political
mess of your making Germany. If the EU
is reduced to a tawdry debate between domestic German politicians and federalists
fanatics Britain will indeed leave and rightly so. In time the EU will fall apart as bureaucracy,
false legitimacy and false democracy rot its institutions from within. Do you want that Berlin?

As for Jean-Claude Juncker;
given the more free-trade, less bureaucracy ‘reform’ agenda today being
discussed by EU leaders Juncker is completely the wrong man with the wrong
beliefs in the wrong job.

Wednesday, 25 June 2014

Bucharest, Romania. 25
June. Europe from the other end. My reason for coming to Bucharest is to
address the 16th Partnership for Peace Conference. One gets a different perspective of European
security from Romania.,,and a different perspective of the EU.

EU leaders will
tomorrow gather for a very tetchy meeting in Ypres during which they will
appoint Jean Claude Juncker as President of the European Commission. I am not
one of those hoping for a Juncker appointment because it will make a bad situation
worse. My instinct is always to try and
make things work. However, it is now
clear that Juncker’s appointment will lay the ground for Britain’s historic and
pending departure from the EU. Given
that two things are now clear. First,
the EU needs a new political settlement.
Second, Europeans must somehow separate the dispute over the future
governance of Europe (for that is what it is) from the security and defence of
Europe, hard though that will be.

The Juncker Affair
reflects a structural split between those in the Eurozone who by joining the
single currency wittingly or unwittingly signed up for some form of European
Government and those who did not. The
seeming principle (as much as it exists) behind those supporting Juncker who
are not die-hard Euro-federalists is they accept the loss of national
sovereignty necessary to make the Euro work.
What this group seemingly fail to see is that inevitably means some form
of European Government.

For the British (and all
those not yet in the Euro) this dawning reality is simply recognition that the
EU and the Eurozone are one and the same thing. Henceforth it will no longer be
possible to be in the EU but outside the Eurozone unless a state is willing to
bear a disproportionate cost. In reality
Britain left the EU the moment it rejected membership of the Euro. Indeed, as Churchill might have said; we have
established where we are now all that is left is to decide where next to go.

Therefore, Britain’s pending
‘defeat’ in Ypres will mark an irreparable breach with the Eurozone countries that
will inevitably lead to some form of Brexit.
It might be delayed for a time by a Labour Government but the destiny is
set because the British people will never accept a European Government.

Which is why EU leaders
must find a political settlement before the crisis (for that is what it is)
pollutes further Europe’s security and defence.
Without such a settlement Europe could remain trapped in its own
eternal, internal debate as the world around the EU (and NATO) becomes steadily
more dangerous. Therefore, it is far
better to start thinking now about an equitable relationship between Britain
and the German-led EU. If not the Fourth
Battle of Ypres will be re-fought over and over again as it is one about
structure and principle, rather than personality.

The huge ramifications
of permitting the European Parliament to dictate to the elected political
leaders of the EU’s member-states are becoming clearer by the hour. Social-democrats in the European Parliament are
already using the precedent the Juncker appointment will set to demand the
right in November to replace the European Council President Herman van Rompuy
and High Representative Cathy Ashton with their own appointees. Hitherto these appointments have been the
strict preserve of national leaders.

Which brings me to
Partnership for Peace or PfP. PfP was a
1990s NATO initiative designed to help stabilise Europe in the post-Cold War
period. As evident from the tragedy in
Ukraine Europe is still not “whole and free” in the then words of President
George H.W. Bush. Many today equate “whole
and free” with the EU and “ever closer union”.
However, it is now clear a new way must be found and fast. Indeed, with Islamism marching across the
Levant and the entire Sykes-Picot system of Middle Eastern states tottering
between autocracy and fundamentalism on Europe’s doorstep a new big picture
strategy is urgently needed. That will
mean nothing less than a Strategic Partnership for Regional and Global Peace.

However, that will only
happen when and if a new EU political settlement is reached. Therefore, it is time for a pan-EU conference
to enable leaders to establish a new European political order that offers an
alternative to “ever closer union”. Yes,
that will mean a new treaty and yes that will mean several ‘Europes’. However, a new treaty be needed in any case
for the Eurozone to move towards the deeper political integration necessary to
save the benighted currency.

The cost to individual liberty
will be high and the gap between the citizen and power will increase which is
precisely why deeper political integration is unacceptable to the British. However,
only with a new political settlement will current pressures be eased and order
restored to an EU political system that is under intense, growing and
paralyzing pressure. And only then will
proper consideration begin of Europe’s place in the world and its future
security.

Monday, 23 June 2014

Alphen, Netherlands. 23
June. They called it “Wipers”. Tens of thousands of British and Commonwealth
troops died in the three battles of Ypres in the fight against tyranny. 54, 389 of them have their names inscribed on
the famous Menin Gate, one of four such memorials across the Ypres Salient. Each evening the local fire brigade dutifully
and honourably play Britain’s homage to its fallen “The Last Post”. On Thursday and Friday this week EU Heads of
State and Government will meet to rubber-stamp a German-imposed anti-British
federalist fanatic Jean Claude Juncker as President of the ever-more-powerful
European Commission. It could well be
the Fourth Battle of Ypres… and it will be short.

British Prime Minister
David “less Europe, more member-state” Cameron understands the huge political
significance of this watershed moment and has fought an honourable battle to
stop “more Europe at any cost” Juncker. Cameron
also understands that failure means he is political toast. For once rather than listen to
supine advisers who always say Britain must accept the unacceptable “to avoid
isolation” Cameron is taking a stand. And.
for the first time Cameron will try to force a vote on Juncker (it is normally
decided by consensus) to make his fellow European leaders justify their
decision. Unusually, Cameron is also backed
by all the main British political parties, and he is right. Too often
national European leaders concede long-term strategic principle for the sake of
a short-term political fix. Sadly, in
time they will all pay (or rather their respective peoples will pay) for this appalling
decision.

Sadly, Cameron will be
out-voted in Ypres by weak-willed, sycophantic national leaders who do not see
the bigger federalist picture.
Naturally, they will do all they can to avoid a vote because none of
them want their fingerprints on this absurd appointment. However, they are voting for Juncker because Queen Angela wants it and she in turn is concerned more by the German Press and its obsession with imposing Spitzenkandidaten than the future of
Europe (see this week’s edition of The
Economist on an ever-more unprincipled German Press, “An Unwelcome Nexus”).

The tragedy for the
European people is that many leaders privately share Cameron’s concerns about
Juncker, even Merkel. Instead of
standing on principle they are instead tying to cover their sorry political backsides by claiming Juncker is precisely what the European voter asked for knowing full
well they are hijacking my vote and that of millions of other Europeans. It is the EU at its very undemocratic worst.

The most spectacular piece of political dissembling came from the Polish Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski. Now, I rate Sikorski but he can stretch credulity to its limits at times. In an attempt to tell BBC listeners that Juncker’s appointment is democratic he suggested the Polish voter knew a vote for his party in the 22 May European Parliamentary elections was a vote for Juncker. With a straight face he said there had been “billboards”, implying the smiling face of Juncker was plastered all over Poland in the run-up to the elections. If any of my Polish friends can confirm the existence of such billboards I stand to be corrected. However, a recent opinion poll suggested 90% of Europeans had never even heard of Juncker prior to this piece of EU political shenanigans.

This is a power
struggle between true democratic legitimacy which is at the national level and the
pretend legitimacy of the almost-elected European Parliament. It is yet another case of successful federalist 'interpretation' (manipulation) of the disastrous Lisbon Treaty. The very first time I voted was in the
inaugural elections to the 1979 European Parliament. At the time one sage commentator warned there
would come a day when this new Parliament would challenge the sovereignty of
the Mother of Parliaments. “Not in my
lifetime”, I thought. And yet that day has come. A day when a faction in a barely elected
parliament claims the political legitimacy from my vote to demand more power
than elected national heads of state and government most of whom were elected
by their peoples on far stronger mandates. As political precedents go this is just about
as dangerous as it gets and federalist fanatics like Juncker know it. Indeed, such events are precisely how and why
the EU is slipping towards federalism.

True to form this past week
Juncker has been making secret, backroom deals to consolidate his hold on the
Commission presidency. These are the
anti-transparency deals for which he is infamous and which will mark his
Presidency. For Juncker the people are
the enemy. We are too ignorant to see
his ‘vision’ and must therefore be forced to accept deeper European integration. Suddenly we the citizens will wake up one day
to find we ‘agreed’ to a more Europe something about which we were never
informed or to which we never gave our consent.

Juncker like all
fanatics is a believer in totalitarianism-lite masked in the empty rhetoric of empty liberty. Totalitarianism is a political system where a
state holds total, distant authority, believes it is always right irrespective
of the views of the people, sees all disagreement as dissent and seeks to
control all aspects of public and private life.
It hides its real political objectives behind mantras such as ‘efficiency’
and ‘solidarity’ whilst talking endlessly of ‘the people’ it despises. For Juncker and his like the only way to
create the European Government in which they believe is to defeat the
member-states by whatever means possible.
It is a long-term project and Britain must and should have no part of
it.

The first indicator of bureaucratic
totalitarianism-lite is when elites begin to manipulate the vote. On 22 May millions of voters across Europe
voted for reform whether they voted for radical or moderate parties. That was certainly my intention when I cast
my moderate vote. And yet a “business as
usual” man who is the very essence of EU uber-elite insider-ism, anti-reform
and anti-transparency is to be imposed on me as President of the European
Commission.

Sadly, my last hope
that balance could be restored between the insatiable appetite of Brussels for
power, the nation-state and the will of the people will be smashed come the end
of this week. That hope was that David Cameron’s sensible
reform proposals could have provided a basis for an EU reform agenda that all
could rally round – both those in the German empire, sorry Eurozone, and those
without.

Power to flow away from
Brussels not towards it, national parliaments to be given the power to work
together to block unwanted legislation, businesses to be liberated from
federalist red tape designed not to enhance efficiency but integration for
integration’s sake, managed mass movements of peoples, and an end to the
presumption of ever closer union. Had I
seen such an agenda overseen by a reformer I would have campaigned for Britain
to stay in the EU. With Juncker’s
appointment I will instead campaign for Britain to leave. Juncker represents a threat to both my
country and democracy.

There will of course be
a ‘reform agenda’ agreed at Ypres if only to offer Cameron a political straw to
clutch. However, it will be as usual a
lie, a pretend ‘reform’ agenda. And, of
course, Juncker will work in the political darkness using the considerable power
of the Commission to initiate legislation together the false political
legitimacy he will claim from the European Parliament to block any reform that
prevents “more Europe”. They very man
who will be responsible for implementing “Ypres” will be the very man
determined to destroy it; Jean Claude Juncker,

The EU is not the
Soviet Union and I would not betray the people who had to live under that awful
regime by suggesting it is. However, if
not checked by national legislatures the EU will continue down a path that
eventually leads to the enforcement of conformism. The fanatics will of course laugh this off. That is how they dismiss all and any dissent
but they know I am right. And, as per
usual the federalists will talk much about ‘the people’ whilst completely
ignoring their views every time they disagree with ‘The Project’. Yes, elections will go on but they will become
ever more like Soviet ‘elections’ – pre-ordained and irrelevant. In
time people will not bother voting anymore because it simply will not be worth
it.

I was witness to the
fanaticism of the federalists at a recent dinner party at which I was the guest
speaker. I will not say whom or where
because the senior EU official was speaking in a personal capacity and I would
not wish to embarrass my hosts. However,
as I made my reasoned concerns about the EU clear I was suddenly met with a
torrent of federalist rhetoric that lightly-masked real anger that I could
possibly voice such concerns. She even
had the gall to suggest she represents me.
As I patiently de-constructed her arguments on European political and
monetary union and, of course, that old federalist favourite a European Army
she was left to simply repeat the federalist mantra; “more Europe is better
Europe”. She was so extreme French and
German officials in the room sided with me.

One of my favourite
philosophers is the seventeenth century English writer John Locke. Locke challenged the then idea of patriarchy. To Locke power did not come from God but from
the people. With the appointment of
Juncker we are witnessing a new form of patriarchy, a new Leviathan whereby distant
power claims power not in the name of God but the manipulated name of the very people
who did not vote for them.

So what will
happen? By appointing Juncker power will
shift markedly from the member-states to the Commission and the
Parliament. The federalists will use
this political precedent to push for ever greater control over all appointments
at the expense of the member-states. In
so doing they will not only dilute further national sovereignty but seek to
shift the centre of ‘democratic’ gravity from the national parliaments they do
not control to the European Parliament that they do.

Worse, the voice of the
citizen will be lost. In most national
parliamentary elections 50,000 citizens vote on average for one deputy or MP
(and in the case of Britain someone who acts directly on behalf of each
citizen), in the almost-elected European Parliament the European voter ‘elects’
one Member of European Parliament for every 450,000 to 500,000 of us. A clearer dilution of democracy one will never
find as the link between power and the people is steadily broken in the
EU. Henceforth the federalists will be
free to use an unaccountable and undemocratic executive overseen by an
almost-elected rubber-stamping Parliament to drive untrammelled over democracy
and liberty confident that national leaders will be unable to stop them. And all of this because Chancellor Merkel has
a little local difficulty with her local Press.

UKIP and their like? They
are so much froth and foment who will make a lot of noise, spend too much time
disagreeing with each other about how bad the EU is whilst they sit on the side-lines
of real power. Indeed, they will afford
Juncker and his allies a strange form of legitimacy as they will give the
impression of checks and balances that simply do not exist.

Germans should also be
careful what they wish for. Queen Angela thinks Juncker will be her man in
Brussels and that he will help consolidate the Eurozone as a German Zollverein. If Juncker gets his way Germany end up like
the rest of us; reduced in time to a ‘lande’ or province in the United States
of Europe of which he dreams. Talk about
turkeys voting for Christmas!

For Cameron and Britain
the Fourth Battle of Ypres will mark the end of any pretence that Britain or
the British people have any influence over the EU. Wipers will thus mark the place and the time when
Britain faced a choice; free state or EU province?

The Ypres European
Council meeting was meant to mark reconciliation between Britain and Germany
one hundred years after the outbreak of World War One. The three battles of Ypres a century or so
ago were part of a huge violent struggle about who runs Europe. Make no mistake, although thankfully far more
peaceful and civilised the Fourth Battle of Ypres this coming Thursday and
Friday will also be about who runs Europe. Or, to be more exact, who runs European
countries; the people we know we elect or those distant people like Jean Claude
Juncker who pretend we elect them but only tell us afterwards.

As the firemen gather to
play “The Last Post” on Friday night they could well be lamenting not only
Britain’s fallen but the slide of Europe away from democracy towards a new form
of bureaucratic totalitarianism and the EU super-state which Jean-Claude
Juncker is determined will prevail.

Friday, 20 June 2014

Alphen, Netherlands. 20
June. When I first started working on the derelict garden I had just bought
some six years ago I discovered lurking under the chaos the most pernicious of
weeds. The Dutch call it Sevenblad, in English it is known as Ground Elder. My first approach was to try and remove it
root and incredibly long-branch. Having
cleared away overgrowth of jungle-like proportions I began patiently pulling up
great underground pipelines (not Russian) of weed. Sometimes the branches
extended for metres/yards and soon my garden resembled the map of the London
Underground. I could even identify King’s
Cross/St Pancras! However, I soon
realised that my root and branch approach would only work if I destroyed the
garden, which hardly seemed the point.

There was a time when I
simply did not know what to do. In my nightmares the beast was running amok and I had visions of it consuming everything. Then I
discovered an amazing treatment that attacks the dreaded weed when it surfaces
and prevents it from spreading. It worked! Suddenly everything that I had wanted to grow
began to grow. Well, almost everything because
I am a seriously crap gardener.

The West’s response to
the violent advance of the Islamic State
in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in Iraq strikes me as the strategic equivalent
of my clueless moment between the root and branch and the surgical treatment of
my spreading Ground Elder. It is as though having failed to eradicate extremism root and branch in either Afghanistan or Iraq any considered action is doomed to fail. This is even
though British Prime Minister Cameron said on Wednesday that ISIL poses a real if limited threat. Such policy paralysis reflects
a loss of strategic nerve. strategic imagination and a lack of a coherent and well-considered strategy
rather than the absence of options.

Sound strategy is normally divided into short, medium and long-term actions themselves based on certain principled questions: What is the threat? Who is the threat? What
strengths and weaknesses does the threat possess? What courses of action are
available?

What is the threat? ISIL comprise some ten to
fifteen thousand core fighters.They are
regarded by Al Qaeda as being so extreme as to be beyond even their Pale.As such they face in the words of Adnan Khan “ideological isolation”.

Who is the threat? One reason for the sudden advance of ISIL is
that they are currently in league with a group that styles itself the Military
Council of Iraq Revolutionaries or MCIR.
MCIR appears to be led by senior Iraqi Sunni leaders many of whom were senior Iraqi military officers under Saddam.
As such they see themselves as fighting against Prime Minister Maliki
and his Shia-dominated government rather than for a new Caliphate from which to
launch Global Jihad. There are also
signs that this unlikely coalition is fraying.
This week the MCIR described ISIL as “barbarians”. Critically, the Association of Muslim Clerics
(AMC) supports MCIR and have warned ISIL to curb its violence towards
civilians.

What strengths and
weaknesses does the threat possess? The
current strength of ISIL is the disenchantment of the Iraqi Sunnis with the
Maliki Government in Baghdad. Although
the Sunni’s are a minority they represent powerful tribes/clans to the north
and east of Baghdad that was once Saddam’s power-base. As such they know how to
organise to effect. The main weakness of
ISIL is their paucity of numbers and their extreme violence which renders them capable of violence but incapable of government should they ever take Baghdad.

What courses of action
are available? A coherent strategy would
have the following elements:

First, it is vital
Western leaders properly quantify the threat and stop the successful
exploitation of the worst nightmares of ordinary westerners. It is precisely such exploitation that
paralyses European governments in particular.

Second, the evolving
nature of fundamentalism must be understood.
Al Qaeda is mutating and its many off-shoots are indeed now active
across a great belt of instability from Afghanistan to Mali. However, there is no coordinated Global
Jihad and there is unlikely to be. The
massive majority of responsible Muslims both in the region and in Europe
utterly reject such extremism. Not only
are they a key constituency they must be respected as such.

Third, the overt use of
Western, i.e. American military power would undoubtedly give ISIL ‘street cred’
across much of the Arab World which they currently lack. Indeed, the greatest danger is that the West turns ISIL from a mutation of the Syrian tragedy into a pan-Arab movement as a consequence of ill-conceived military action.
Indeed, Western over-reaction is precisely the aim of the strategic
communications campaign being conducted the extremist trolls on the Internet
who support ISIL.

Fourth, an
accommodation between Iraqi Shia and Sunni must be sought. In effect this means implementation of the existing Iraqi constitution.

Fifth, whilst an alliance with Iran might seem appealing Tehran seeks the consolidation of
Shia (and thus Iran-friendly) control over Iraq and thus the confirmation of
sectarianism. That is precisely why
senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Al Quds leaders act as advisors to the
Maliki Government. co-operation should be sought but under strict conditions.

Specific courses of immediate
action should include the following:

a) the construction of a clear intelligence picture of the key
personalities;

b) preservation of the seat of Iraqi Government via the bolstering with advice those elements of the Iraqi armed forces still loyal to
Baghdad as well as the Kurdish Peshmerga;

c) contact with MCIR leaders to understand their grievances and to see if the
MCIR/ISIL link can be broken;

and d) engagement with and on the Maliki Government to
ensure governance in Iraq is re-established on non-Sectarian lines.

The wider lessons of post-2001
Western engagement are that a) it is vital to understand the specifics of any
threat. The devil is in the detail; b) ideological
or evangelical desires to spread democracy are no basis for action per se; c) threats
that are loosely affiliated are not necessarily part of a globally-capable
conspiracy; d) such ‘threats’ must not be ‘legitimised’ by ill-conceived
action; e) act to prevent and separate domestic grievances from foreign
struggles; f) isolate the irreconcilables through the use of law; g) military power should be used
only in support of political strategy not as a punitive act in and of itself; h)
the support of local people is critical to any Western strategy of engagement
and thus respect for their beliefs and customs must be a given of strategy; i)
good governance should be at the heart of all political strategy; and j)
strategic patience is critical to effective engagement along with all means and
tools of influence.

There is one final question; why should the West act? Unlike many other states round the World in this struggle of the state versus the anti-state ISIL has declared the West to be its enemy.

Wednesday, 18 June 2014

Alphen,
Netherlands. 18 June. Every Yuletide when I was a
kid my parents would haul me off to see a particularly perverse form of British
theatre called the Christmas Pantomime. Usual
stock included Jack and the Beanstalk,
Aladdin and Robin Hood, normally in cahoots with varying and often suspiciously
merry clown-like henchmen. Such ripping
yarns tended to have two things in common which can explain a lot about we
English. The lead ‘man; was invariably played by a woman whilst
the inevitable ugly woman had to be played incontrovertibly by a man. However, it was the pantomime villain who reigned
supreme (at least until the last scene).
A character so steeped in comic evil that his (on occasions her)
appearance would elicit a storm of high-pitched booing. Watching the visceral destruction of Tony
Blair this week by the British political class and Press as he tried to say
something sensible about Iraq I was reminded of those long gone innocent days
when anything seemed possible. Tony
Blair made some appalling mistakes but he is no pantomime villain.

Now, I must start with
a disclaimer. I was a big fan of Tony
Blair and from what I understand from one piece I wrote back in 1998 for the “New Statesman”, entitled “Time to Bite the Eurobullet” he was a
bit of a fan of me. Put simply, Blair was a leader who still
eclipses many of the current crop of politicians who clog the upper echelons of
British politics with pretend leadership.

Now, do not get me
wrong Blair made big mistakes. First, he
over-estimated and then under-estimated the impact of globalisation. His cynical use of hyper-immigration to ram
diversity down the throats of the right (in the infamous words of a Downing
Street memo of the time) and assuage the left of the Labour Party was
irresponsible in the extreme. Not only
did he render all immigration toxic in the minds of much of the British
population the self-serving left liberal London elite which he led refused to
see the damage such a large and rapid influx did to English urban society in
particular.

Blair then compounded
that error by imposing ‘multiculturalism’ rather than integration on the
British people. This led to patent
absurdities such as the tolerance of extremism at home which today sees so-called
‘British’ jihadists fighting with ISIS in Syria and Iraq whilst at one and the
same time sending British troops to Afghanistan to keep radical Islam at ‘strategic
distance’. Indeed, tens of thousands of
people from the poorest, most radical and traumatised parts of the world entered
Britain under Blair even as British troops were fighting Al Qaeda and the
Taliban. It was shaming that under Blair London became known
as Londonistan.

Second, Blair failed to
realise that Britain could never be at the ‘heart of Europe’ whilst being
outside the Eurozone (and even then probably not). The imposition on the British people of the
2007 Lisbon Treaty and the systematic misleading of the British people about
just how much sovereignty he was handing to Brussels without their permission
was unforgiveable. This was compounded
by Blair’s refusal to let the British people have a referendum on an issue of
fundamental constitutional importance.

Third, he should have
sacked Gordon Brown in 2001 when he won a second landslide electoral victory. The endless battles between Blair and Brown
added to a sense of a country being held to ransom by Labour Party politics
which emasculated effective government.
Moreover, the paralysis of government at the highest levels helped turn ‘light-touch’
banking regulation into an open invitation to criminal bankers to create the
2008 banking crisis which has damaged so many ordinary lives including my own.

And then there is
interventionism. Afghanistan and Iraq
are today deemed to be disasters because of American and British intervention. Certainly, tens if not hundreds of thousands of
people have died as a consequence of those events. However, it is utterly unfair to say that is
all the fault of Tony Blair or that both countries would have fared better if
no action had been taken. No-one knows
what would have happened if Saddam had stayed unchecked in Iraq or if the
Taliban/Al Qaeda had consolidated their hold on Afghanistan. Saddam clearly had ambitions to create
weapons of mass destruction even if he had not attained them by 2003 when the
coalition invaded. Saddam’s Baathist regime
was sustained by violence and war. Sooner
or later the Saddam regime would have either exploded or imploded under the
weight of its own violent inertia.

Al Qaeda in 2001
Afghanistan was trying to do the same as ISIS today in Iraq; create a base from
which to launch global Jihad. To suggest
that ISIS is an unintended consequence of the US-led invasion of Iraq is perverse. ISIS is a further mutation of violent Islamism
that is apparent across the globe from Nigeria to Afghanistan and beyond. Why are the French in Mali and the Central
African Republic?

Tony Blair also enjoyed
noted historic successes. It was Blair
who brought peace to the streets of Belfast and across Northern Ireland. It was Blair who used British forces to
successfully stop genocide in Sierra Leone.
It was Blair who rightly moved European defence forward in 1998 with the
St Malo agreement. It was Blair who
believed that Britain, Europe and the West had to engage in a dangerous world and
could be a “force for good”. It was Blair
who was the passionate advocate of Responsibility to Protect and a United Nations
that was more than a talking shop.
Indeed, it was precisely the belief that Saddam had ritually flouted UN-sanctioned
international law that led Blair to believe intervention was necessary.

Tony Blair failed not
because he was too cynical but because he was too much the
idealist. He failed at home because his attempts
to prepare Britain for the twenty-first century and the concept of ‘modernisation’
he championed were far more radical than the British people realised or were
prepared to accept. However, his
prescriptions were essentially correct. Sadly,
Blair’s abject failure has accelerated Britain's exaggerated decline. He has also left Britain a broken place, possibly about to break
up, bearing an unacceptable level of Brussels intrusion at an appalling
price and with little sense of itself or its place in the world.

Blair failed on the
international stage because he found himself trapped between an uncompromising
American president and a France and Germany which disagreed profoundly. He had to make a choice all British prime
ministers have since 1973 strenuously tried to avoid; the choice between America and Europe.

However, perhaps Blair’s
true failure was to open the door to Britain’s non-leaders of today. People who believe in nothing, believe
nothing is possible and worse do not believe in Britain or its future. Stalk the corridors of Westminster and
declinist cynicism oozes from every nook and cranny.

Tony Blair failed as a
prime minister. However, he is not the villain
he is so often painted. And, from time
to time he still has something to say that is worth listening to.

Monday, 16 June 2014

Eurosatory:
Paris, France. 16 June. T.S. Eliot wrote
“We are the hollow men, we are the stuffed men…shape without form, shade
without colour, paralysed force, gesture without motion”. Eurosatory
is the largest international military security and defence exhibition of its
kind. Hugely impressive it conveys a
sense of power; it is in many ways an illusion.
My reason for coming here to Paris is as a guest of IFRI, a leading
French think-tank, to speak on a pivotal question; is Europe militarily
dead? Perhaps there is an even bigger
question that I should answer; is the West strategically dead?

This is a big strategic
moment. This past week Russian T-72
tanks entered Ukraine and Moscow conducted a snap exercise of forty thousand troops
in Kaliningrad on the borders of Poland and Lithuania. In Iraq the Islamic State of Iraq and the
Levant now threatens not just Baghdad but the entire Sykes-Picot system of
states set up (for better or worse) in 1916 as they seek to create an
anti-state, a Caliphate from which to launch global jihad.

Washington talks
vaguely about some sort of action and has sent the aircraft-carrier USS George W. Bush into the Gulf but
rules out serious military action. Tony
Blair has rightly warned Europeans to wake up but is excoriated for it. Instead, Europeans find ever more complicated
ways to ‘understand’ Russian aggression and by and large ignore what is
happening across the Mediterranean as the Levant from Lebanon to the Gulf
totters in the face of extremism.

The West has become a
self-indulgent strategic void led by the hollow men (and women) for whom
short-termism and parochialism is the stuff of politics. A decade or so ago the Americans believed
anything was possible. Today,
strategically-inept Americans and their strategically-illiterate European
allies believe nothing is possible.

Instead government has
reduced foreign and security policy to pop culture. British Foreign Secretary
William Hague cavorts with Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt because his advisors
tell him it makes for good politics. Sure,
ending violence against women in conflict is important. Would it not be more important to deal with
the bloody conflicts in the first place?

This is not just a
British phenomenon. Across the EU
politicians tell me that public opinion would never accept another foreign
quagmire. The same politicians who then ignore
public opinion as they appoint the elitist, federalist, faux democrat Jean-Claude Juncker as European Commission President
(and they will). Sadly, with Europe
about to embark on the great struggle between democrats and federalists over
the fate of the nation-state there will be little if any political energy left to
engage the terrifying array of challenges amassing on Europe’s doorstep.

Europe has been a
strategic void for a long, shameful time, but worryingly Washington is also a
strategic void with the Obama administration looking and sounding ever more
like the EU. President Obama came into
office promising to get America out of foreign wars. He has certainly done that but only at the
cost of creating the very strategic void that the likes of Russia, Islamists and
others are now exploiting. Like Europe’s
hollow leaders Obama talks the talk of power, values, interests and engagement
but it is empty, meaningless and without purpose or direction…and America’s
allies and adversaries know it. The
Obama administration is a study in strategic weakness.

And, as the world rearms
the US will cut its defence budget over the next six years more than the entire
European defence budget – a plague on both our houses. So what, the hollow men (and women) tell me
the 2020 US defence budget will still be as big as 1999. So what, the hollow men (and women) tell me crises
cannot be resolved with military power alone.
‘Soft power’ must be applied. The
world of 2020 will be very different to the world of 1999. As for oxymoronic ‘soft power’ it has become the
hollow metaphor of hollow men (and women) for hollowed out power.

Western leaders must
get a strategic grip and now. All the
ingredients exist for a very nasty world and yet Europe in particular has gone
on an extended strategic vacation.
Politicians must stop putting electoral politics before sound
strategy. They must face down the
growing pacifism that sees the death of even one professional soldier as a
signal for withdrawal. They must stop talking
of defence merely in terms of cost rather than investment and ignore its immense
value in a dangerous world. It is the
fate of those without strategy to see only cost and never value.

Action is needed now. Something that looks like a coherent strategy
is needed to re-engage jihadists and expansionists the world over. That means
Western leaders re-discovering their strategic mojo. Much has been made of the NATO Wales Summit
due to take place 4-5 September and yet the draft agenda lacks both the
ambition and the scope to generate the big picture politicians will need if
strategy is to replace hollow rhetoric.

Sadly, the hollow men
(and women) are all too predictable. For
them strategy is to be avoided at all cost because it means commitment and in
Europe at least accountancy has replaced strategy. Therefore, we the citizens will go on
listening to the strategically-hollow talking big, empty platitudes about
values and the ‘critical’ and ‘vital’ interests upon which freedom and
stability are built as they quietly abandon the very principles upon which
liberty is based.

And we will want to
believe them as the hollow men (and women) ‘lead’ us all down into the great
strategic void in which they live. The non-place
in which everything is talked about but nothing is possible. The non-place where all options are considered
but none are taken. The non-place where the
long-term is ‘championed’ but only the short-term is ever discussed. The non-place where we the people sleep the sleep
of fools at peace with ourselves whilst the hollow men (and women) feed us political
delusions and illusions we are only too happy to swallow ‘safe’ in our own
hollowness.

And the world will fail
as the vacuum created by the West’s strategic withdrawal will unleash all hell
sooner or later. Indeed, until the
West’s responsible leaders face up to this dangerous world as it is not as they
would like it to be strategy will be reduced to a series of ill-connected
expressions of often glossy impotence.

There is a new geopolitics
afoot that sees autocrats and extremists the world over threaten not just the
West’s values but its fundamental freedoms.
And yet the hollow men (and women) dither strategically-exhausted,
strategically-unsure and strategically-depressed. So, sleep on my friends. Slumber whilst you can because soon you will
be awakened by the chirp and Twitter of the hollow men (and women) as they blame
each other for having appeased reality. Or
seek the scapegoat for their inaction.
Tony Blair are you listening?

“Why did you not act”
we shall cry. “We knew what to do”, they
will eventually tell us, “…but if we had done it your sleep would have been
disturbed and you would not have re-elected us.
And you looked so peaceful”. The
hollow reply of the hollow men (and women) who are paid to lead but never do.

“Between the desire and
the spasm, between the potency and the existence, between the essence and the
descent, falls the shadow”.

Thursday, 12 June 2014

Ottawa, Canada. 12
June. Two hundred years ago in 1814 what
was then British North America burnt down the White House and with the help of
British Regulars re-arranged much else in Washington. The Americans had launched an ill-advised and
haphazard invasion of British territory and were rightly taught a lesson about
manners and neighbourly relations.
Today, Canada is one of the world’s richest, most secure and most
neighbourly countries on the planet.
There are few if any threats that Canada faces and the American behemoth
to the south offers Canadians protection by extension. So, what role does Canada’s aspire to play in
a rapidly changing and potentially very dangerous world?

My purpose in coming to
green, leafy Ottawa has been to engage in two days of talks with senior Canadian
foreign and defence officials on a range of strategy and security-related
topics. My welcome is typically Canadian – honest, friendly and open. Indeed, I make no attempt to mask the fact
that I like and admire this country which has always ‘done its bit’ either as a
faithful British dominion in former times, as a close American and British ally
in two world wars or as an under-stated and yet effective NATO member.

Canadians have turned
modesty into a strategic doctrine ‘oftentimes’ (as the say here) being at the
very forefront of American and British-led campaigns. Given little credit for their immense but
under-stated sacrifice Canadians have seemed content to let others decide their
strategic direction of travel. Indeed,
one only has to look at last week’s D-Day 70 commemorations to get a sense of
the pivotal role played by Canada in Europe’s freedom and yet their
determination not to make a fuss about it.
This was something reinforced in my mind during a visit to Ottawa’s magnificent
war museum in which I had the honour of meeting two Canadian veterans.

And yet as I contemplate
my visit I am still left with a very big question mark in my mind about Canada’s
role in the world. Indeed, it would be
easy for Canadians to sit back and leave world peace to others. Unlike many Western countries Canada need not
fret about energy security as she sits on vast reserves of oil and gas. However, that is not the Canadian way and one
can feel the ‘what next’ question hanging over Ottawa.

Neither is there a
willingness here to really confront just ‘what next’ could mean. And. looked at strategically it is clear that
the world and the political realism which again defines it will not leave
Canada in peace. Canada is a three ocean
state two of which will be contested – the Arctic and the Pacific.

The problem for Canada
is that Ottawa has no tradition of looking at the world for itself and making
the big, strategic choices such an analysis would force upon Canadians. For so long others have either made Ottawa’s
strategic choices or provided the strategic context for Canadian action. However, with a US as uncertain and as
uncertainly-led as at any time since the 1930s and with Europe in self-imposed,
self-obsessed steep decline Canada must now think strategically for itself.

Specifically, Canada
must decide what it needs to do to renovate the crisis-ridden rules-based, institution-framed
system Canada helped to build and which Canadians have done so much to
maintain. The alliances and unions of the twentieth century are in danger of
becoming rapidly parochial in the twenty-first.
Moreover, in the emerging world-wide web of democracies security will no
longer pivot on Europe but on North America with Canada occupying a key
position in a new West no longer a place but an idea.

Given the inherent
modesty of this most congenial of countries the pragmatic, civil-military ethos
that has infused much of Canada’s external engagements in the past fifteen
years (and which have suited Canada and its sense of itself) will need to be
replaced by something much more ambitious.
My sense however is that Canada will need to break out of the
self-defeating denial about the scope and pace of strategic change if Ottawa is
to meet the coming challenges of what is fast becoming a hyper-competitive strategic
age.

This is not so much
because Canada itself will be threatened but because the values that define
Canada will need defending. And here I
see some very European complacency, particularly in defence policy. With Canada’s defence expenditure down at
around 1.1% GDP (in reality) almost half the NATO target of 2% GDP Canadians
like to suggest that it is not how much one spends on defence but how one
spends it. That is of course right to a
limited point. However, it is equally
true that 2% well-spent is better than 1% well-spent and Canada needs and can
afford to set an example to other allies. However, the controversy here over
the purchase of the F-35 fighter demonstrates a very profound uncertainty about
just what the Canadian armed forces are for and by extension Canada’s level of
strategic ambition (which is really what the politics of F-35 is all about).

Last night unable to
sleep I read the 2008 Canada First
Defence Strategy. It is a decent albeit
relatively light defence-strategic effort and certainly helped me back into
unconsciousness. However, having read the Strategy I still could not work out what
role Canada aspires to play. Indeed, the
Strategy seemed to start with a question that to my mind is wrong for such a
serious, grown-up country - where does Canada fit in to the plans of others, particularly
the United States? Surely, the question
Canadians need to answer is what role Canada in the twenty-first century?

There is a also a deeper
question Canada must again answer. It is
the question those marvellous Canadians answered very clearly on Juno Beach; to
what are extent Canadians prepared to defend the liberal values which define
this great country, where and how. To
answer that question Ottawa will need strategy, not just politics.

About Me

Julian Lindley-French is Senior Fellow of the Institute of Statecraft, Director of Europa Analytica & Distinguished Visiting Research Fellow, National Defense University, Washington DC. An internationally-recognised strategic analyst, advisor and author he was formerly Eisenhower Professor of Defence Strategy at the Netherlands Defence Academy,and Special Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of Leiden. He is a Fellow of Respublica in London, and a member of the Strategic Advisory Group of the Atlantic Council of the United States in Washington.
Latest books: The Oxford Handbook on War 2014 (Paperback) (2014; 709 pages). (Oxford: Oxford University Press) & "Little Britain? Twenty-First Strategy for a Middling European Power". (www.amazon.com)
The Friendly-Clinch Health Warning: The views contained herein are entirely my own and do not necessarily reflect those of any institution.